SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY

amy and i spent a lot of time last summer talking about the concept of remaining charmed: with the city that housed us, with our friends, with art, with life. perhaps i'd forgotten this discussion for a bit, or perhaps its resurgence is simply inherently linked to recognizing an impending expiration date (i.e. graduating and leaving provo, my home for five years! and eventually the country, my home for many years more!), but i've been suddenly seized with the ability to feel charmed with everything again. i feel that i have, with my poverty, bought a lifetime of days:

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I've never been seized by it since. For some reason I always "hid" the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD OR MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.

It is still the first week in January, and I've got great plans. I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.

from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by annie dillard.

i hope it stays that simple, and in a terribly powerful way, i feel that it will. in fact, i have proof of this, in my friendships with all of you, and in this beautiful global community we have that (even if i contribute to the transpacific aspect of it) will always make me feel like i can reach out and squeeze your hands.